Posted on 02/25/2008 4:15:12 PM PST by NormsRevenge
TRIPOLI (AFP) - The Kadhafi Foundation denied a report by Human Rights Watch that it was holding a Libyan political prisoner whose health was deteriorating on Monday, as AFP was allowed to visit the detainee.
HRW called at the end of January for the immediate and unconditional release of opposition figure Fathi al-Jahmi, 66, who has been held since 2004 after criticising the regime of Libya's leader Moamer Kadhafi.
It said he was seriously ill and needed urgent medical treatment.
But Salah Abdessalem of the Foundation, a charity headed by Kadhafi's son Seif al-Islam, said he was "suprised" by the statement over Jahmi, who had already been in hospital for the past eight months.
He was being given "all the medical assistance he needs", said Abdessalem.
An AFP journalist who was authorised to visit Jahmi said the patient was isolated in a room of Tripoli General Hospital's cardiology ward, under the guard of three policemen.
Smiling but visibly tired, he was circled by his wife and five children. "It's my state of health which concerns me right now. I want to go back to my family home," he said.
"The (Kadhafi) Foundation has even proposed for the family to take charge of him and to continue his treatment at the family home but we have not received any response yet," said Abdessalem.
And Dr Abdullah Shiri said Jahmi's condition had improved over the past three months, especially the state of his heart.
The United States has repeatedly called for Jahmi's release, whose case was raised with Libyan Foreign Minister Abdelrahman Shalgham when he visited Washington in early January, according to the State Department.
Libyan opposition circles say the Kadhafi Foundation has been trying to find a solution before US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visits Libya later this year.
Tripoli says Jahmi is "mentally disturbed" and being held "for his own security" after having made remarks against the regime that "stirred anger among the population".
A court in September 2006 ordered his hospitalisation in a psychiatric unit, according to Libyan authorities.
HRW says he has was first arrested in October 2002 after criticising Kadhafi's government and calling for elections, a free press and the release of political prisoners in Libya, which insists it holds no such detainees.
Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi speaks during a news conference in Tripoli, in January 2008. The Kadhafi Foundation denied a report by Human Rights Watch that it was holding a Libyan political prisoner whose health was deteriorating on Monday, as AFP was allowed to visit the detainee. (AFP/File/Mahmud Turkia)
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